Nigel Farage calls for second referendum on Brexit

Nigel Farage has called for a second referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU.

The former UKIP leader and leading Brexit campaigner said he was confident a new vote on the issue would "kill off" the debate.

"I'm reaching the point of thinking that we should have a second referendum on EU membership," he told Channel 5's The Wright Stuff.

"I think if we had a second referendum on EU membership, we'd kill it off for a generation. The percentage that would vote to leave next time would be very much bigger than it was last time, and we may just finish the whole thing off."

Before the referendum in June 2016, Mr Farage said there could be unstoppable demand for a second vote in the event of a narrow win for the remain campaign.

And speaking on Thursday, he said he was coming round to a new vote on the issue in a bid to silence critics such as former PM Tony Blair, former minister Lord Adonis and ex-Deputy PM Nick Clegg who want Brexit to be reversed.

Asked about a possible new referendum, he said: "My mind is actually changing on this. What is for certain is that the Cleggs, the Blairs, the Adonises, will never ever give up.

"They will go on whinging and whining and moaning all the way through this process."

His intervention came after a survey of more than 4,000 people by Queen Mary University and YouGov found that the vast majority of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish Nationalist Party voters backed a second EU referendum.

Of Labour voters, more than three-quarters backed a second vote, while 87 per cent of SNP voters and 91 per cent of Lib Dems also wanted a new referendum.

The government triggered Article 50 - the legal process formerly triggering Brexit - in March last year, meaning Britain is due to formerly leave the EU in March 2019. However, Lord Kerr, one of the authors of the document, insists Britain can still change its mind and revoke the article beforehand.

Prime Minister Theresa May has previously ruled out holding a second referendum.

But former PM Mr Blair, the Liberal Democrats and other leading Remain campaigners argue voters should be given a say once Brexit negotiations are finalised.